Mugabe predicts a resounding poll victory

President Robert  Mugabe, celebrating his 89th birthday, said on Saturday he believes he will resoundingly defeat his opponents in elections this year and remain in power for another five years.

Mugabe cut an 89 kilogram cake at a sports arena in this mining town of Bindura, about 90 kilometres northeast of Harare. Youth groups of his Zanu-PF party said they walked to the bash to celebrate his "walk through a life of struggle against colonialism and Western imperialism".

Mugabe said he was confident his Zanu-PF party will triumph at the polls and accused his rivals of claiming a recent increase in political violence was intended to cover up an upcoming election defeat under the guise that the polls would not be free and fair.

Officials of Mugabe's party reportedly collected donations of $600 000 for the occasion.

Parliamentary and presidential elections to end the coalition that are scheduled later, possibly around July.

In a nationwide birthday broadcast on state television late Friday, Mugabe said the coalition had become dysfunctional and was "never meant to go on forever".

He said Tsvangirai's former opposition wanted to cling to the financial privileges and power that belonging to the coalition gave them.

"They want to enjoy the ride to the maximum, they have never had it before and they know they will never have it again," he said.

"They are building a false picture of violence which we do not know anything about," Mugabe said.